A team of researchers has discovered that tiny clusters of single-celled organisms that inhabit the world's oceans and lakes, are capable of navigating their way to oxygen. Writing in e-Life scientists at the University of Cambridge describe how choanaflagellates, the closest relatives of animal...
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In this blog post, I describe how I encourage microbiology students to draw cartoons about basic concepts in the course. I find that this approach promotes ownership, better comprehension, and gives me better insight into what the students are "seeing" in my class.
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The TWiVsters describe a new animal model for MERS coronavirus-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome, produced by CRISPR/Cas9 editing of the mouse gene encoding an ortholog of the virus receptor.

Unknown organism, possible Bacillus spp, seen on a hand print after hand washing. TSA plate was grown at 37 C for 24 hours then left at refrigerated temps for 4 weeks. Organism was a light brown and mat. The center of the growth was smooth with rhizoid like growth on the edges which were mucoid ...
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A groundbreaking study of the virosphere of the most populous animals – those without backbones such as insects, spiders and worms and that live around our houses – has uncovered 1445 viruses, revealing people have only scratched the surface of the world of viruses – but it is likely that only a...
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A California state senator introduced a bill on Monday that would mandate reporting of antibiotic-resistant infections and deaths and require doctors to record the infections on death certificates when they are a cause of death.

The legislation also aims to establish the nation’s most compreh...
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Over the last few decades, an age-old infectious disease has been re-emerging globally: Syphilis. Using techniques to analyze low levels of DNA, an international research team headed by the University of Zurich has now shown that all syphilis strains from modern patient samples share a common an...
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Washington, DC – December 5, 2016 – Carbapenems are one of the most important classes of antibiotics used in humans, and are an important agent against multi-drug resistant bacteria. Now, for the first time, bacteria that carry a transmissible carbapenem resistance gene have been found in agricu...
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As Zika spreads throughout the world, the call for rapid development of therapeutics to treat Zika rings loud and clear. Taking a step further in identifying a possible therapeutic candidate, a team of researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS), in collaboration with scientists from the U...
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Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University of California, Riverside, have shown for the first time that RNA interference (RNAi) – an antiviral mechanism known to be used by plants and lower organisms – is active in the response of human cells to some important virus...
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A team of researchers in Brazil and at the Yale School of Public Health has published the first report demonstrating that the Zika virus can cause glaucoma in infants who were exposed to the virus during gestation.

Exposure to the Zika virus during pregnancy causes birth defects of the centra...
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Diphtheria an infection caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae can be fatal at times, especially if it involves the respiratory tract. They multiply locally on mucous membrane, produce toxin causing necrosis of epithelial cells and ultimately form pseudomembranous coat. These pseudomembrane may ...
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Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) is an unforgiving killer of horses, donkeys and zebras, resulting in mortality as high as 80 percent of infected animals. It causes rapid, catastrophic swelling of the brain and spinal cord, leading to severe neurological symptoms and—in many cases—sud...
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If you are currently a microbiologist, chances are your introductory microbiology lab course syllabus hadn’t changed for decades. The course likely culminated in each student receiving an unknown bacterial sample, the identity of which was uncovered by applying techniques learned during the seme...
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While carbapenems aren’t allowed to be given to feedlot animals, other beta-lactam antibiotics are. This is a large class of drugs that includes extended-spectrum cephalosporin drugs. There is no direct line between the use of these extended-spectrum cephalosporins and selection for carbapenem r...
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Actinobacteria are the bacterial phylum responsible for production of many clinically-relevant antibacterial compounds. Streptomyces is a soil-dwelling genus of actinobacteria that produces drugs like neomycin and chloramphenicol. Despite deriving many antibiotics already from Streptomyces, coul...
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